


Down, Down, Down

by OneStepShort



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: I Tried, It got away from me a little bit, It's actually fairly Thiam light, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:34:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23819995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneStepShort/pseuds/OneStepShort
Summary: Stiles didn’t like the kid. But Stiles did like Liam, and it didn’t take the son of a cop to realize just how much Theo meant to Scott’s beta. The tears, the trembling, the stricken look, Theo dying would destroy him. And that would destroy Scott. And as much as his friend had reason to, he probably didn’t want Theo dead either.Besides, if Stiles didn’t help save his life, he wouldn’t get the chance to kill Theo himself..-Liam needs to get in Theo's head. And he's gonna need help.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Scott McCall, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Liam Dunbar & Scott McCall, Liam Dunbar & Stiles Stilinski, Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 12
Kudos: 139





	Down, Down, Down

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Barely Human (But Getting There)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12347349) by [Illuminated_Spectrum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illuminated_Spectrum/pseuds/Illuminated_Spectrum). 



> If you haven't read "Barely Human (But Getting There)" by Illuminated_Spectrum you definitely should because it's amazing and also because this is basically a direct continuation of that premise. This is definitely an "inspired by" work, I claim no originality here. This the first time I've tried to do one like this so if I broke any etiquette, please let me know. 
> 
> Also I take a lot of elements from the movie Inception. So, yeah, definitely no originality.

“I’ll go in with him,” Stiles volunteered. Everyone in the clinic looked at him incredulously. Stiles nodded to Liam. “He’s gonna need a guide down there. I’ve had some practice wandering around other people’s heads.” 

Scott squinted at him. “I thought you hadn’t dreamwalked since Derek was taken.” 

Stiles bit his lip sheepishly. “I might have done it a little more than that.” Behind him, he heard Derek snicker. The guy had been on the receiving end of multiple of his wandering dreams. Since that first instance, when Derek’s mind reached his after the hit from Kate’s wolfsbane shotgun, Stiles had been practicing. And once he realized emotional connection was more important than physical proximity, he’d pushed gently into Scott, Malia, Lydia’s dreams. Usually they didn’t even notice he was there, and Stiles never tried to move around, to pry through their minds, just open the door enough that if they were really in danger, they could call out to him. Like Derek had with the Calaveras. 

Derek always noticed him, though. Even after he left with Braeden. Stiles tried to stay away, but his control was shaky. If he reached out to Derek on instinct, who could blame him? If they ended up talking on the stump of the nemeton during Stiles’ precious winks of REM sleep, slipping into a friendship that seemed so much easier with no consequences, no physical temptation, Stiles could live with that. And if Derek wanted to kick him out, he could have. The guy was basically the poster child for weaponized subconscious. 

Theo, though...Theo was complicated. 

From the details Scott had given him about his resurrection, Stiles had some idea of what was currently happening to the kid, scrunched up in pain on Deaton’s table, the singed tang of wolfsbane on his body strong enough even Stiles could smell it. 

Stiles didn’t like the kid. And to stop and list every reason why could probably take him hours. But Stiles did like Liam, and it didn’t take the son of a cop to realize just how much Theo meant to Scott’s beta. The tears, the trembling, the stricken look, Theo dying would destroy him. And that would destroy Scott. And as much as his friend had reason to, he probably didn’t want Theo dead either. He’d called the guy and asked him for  _ help.  _ Stiles remembered the desperate way Scott asked Theo to get to the hospital, just a few hours ago. 

Besides, if Stiles didn’t help save his life, he wouldn’t get the chance to kill Theo himself. 

He stood and crossed the room to where Liam hovered protectively next to his...friend? Ally? And pulled up the stool Deaton had recently vacated, situating himself. 

Scott sighed. “Alright, but Stiles, remember, we’re trying to  _ save  _ him, not fuck with him.” He took Liam’s hands and gently forced the claws out, guiding one to the base of Theo’s neck, and the other to Stiles. 

“Considering my life is in Liam’s hands, I’m definitely not gonna fuck with him.” Stiles turned his head slightly to address the beta in question, ignoring Scott’s inquisitive look at what that statement might imply. “Liam, before we go in, fair warning.” Liam nodded, showing he was paying attention. “You’re going to wake up trapped, in a cell, or tied down somewhere. It’s the mind’s natural response to invaders, like the immune system fighting off an infection. Remember not to panic, okay? You’re not really trapped.” 

Liam swallowed. “Good to know.” Stiles hoped the nervous energy wracking Liam’s body wouldn’t paralyze him when the claws went in. 

Scott pushed the claws under his skin, and Stiles closed his eyes. 

.-

Liam woke up in a cage.

Despite Stiles’ warning, he still felt a jolt of panic. It only grew once he realized  _ where  _ he was. 

He was at the zoo. 

_ No.  _ He forced himself to think.  _ It’s just Theo’s head.  _ The fact that Theo’s mind had built the perfect way to trap Liam, he tried not to take personally. 

Before he could move to stand, something hard and fast pelted him on the shoulder. 

_ Not again.  _

It hurt like it did before, like it did when he was still  _ human.  _

“Stop…” He tried to say, but the words died in his throat, because suddenly he couldn’t breathe, he was trapped, he was  _ caged,  _ and the barrage started up again and all he could do was curl in on himself and wait for it to stop.

He heard voices,  _ Brett’s  _ voice, taunting him, but there was a mix of others, too, Lori, Mason, Hayden, Scott, even Jiang and Tierney, everyone he’s ever let down melding together, and Liam didn’t want to move, didn’t want to think, just wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and his knees against his chest and he felt like he was  _ drowning  _ in it. 

_ Beta can’t even take a punch.  _

.-

Stiles blinked himself awake and got to his feet. He had no idea where they were, but he was right about being caged. He cleared his mind and bent the fabric of the dream, allowing the metal door to unlock. Changing a detail like that can be dangerous, but if Stiles was right, and he usually was, Theo wouldn’t notice. 

A sign that read  _ Don’t Tease the Animals  _ let Stiles know they were in some approximation of a zoo. 

“ _ No…”  _ Liam’s strangled voice drew Stiles’ attention to the cage next to him. The kid was hugging his knees, pressed against the bars of the back wall, rocking lightly back and forth, eyes shut. 

_ Shit.  _ “Liam?” Stiles knelt down right outside the door of the cage, putting a hand on the bars of the doors. He knew he couldn’t unlock it, because it wasn’t just the cage keeping Liam trapped. 

Liam looked up at the sound of his voice, and Stiles saw tear tracks on his cheeks, not dissimilar to the ones on his corporeal form, back at the animal clinic. “Stiles?” He whispered, unsure. He barely got the name out. With the way he was practically hyperventilating, staring at Stiles wide eyed and anxious, Stiles knew exactly what was happening. 

_ Something’s triggered him.  _ And Stiles’ gut twisted when he understood that Theo’s mind was somehow defended well enough to incapacitate Liam this easily. This wasn’t the first time it had been invaded. 

“Liam, you’re having a panic attack,” Stiles told him, his grip tightening on the cold metal. “I can’t get in there and help you, you have to break yourself out.” 

“How?” Liam gasped out. 

“Mason told us you used to play the drums, for your anger issues?” Stiles swallowed nervously. He wasn’t usually on this side of the attack. And Liam didn’t have an inhaler he could placebo affect him with, like Scott did. “Think of your breathing as the bass, and your heart as the drums. You have to get your rhythm section under control.” 

Liam nodded frantically. Stiles watched as he started tapping his foot, the same way one would for the bass pedal of a drum set. 

“That’s good, Liam.” Stiles did his best to keep his voice even, gentle. Babying was never helpful in these situations, but neither was harshness. Stiles felt helpless, watching from outside the cage, but there was nothing he could do, he knew that. Liam’s belief in the concreteness of the cage was too strong, and only he could break that. 

An excruciating minute went by. Then another, but eventually the taps of Liams foot slowed, his rocking ceased, his breathing returning semi-normal. Stiles couldn’t hear his heart rate, but he could tell as Liam relaxed that that was steadying as well. 

Liam opened his eyes. Stiles exhaled. 

With tentative steps, Liam walked toward the cage door. He gave it a light push, and it swung open. The relief in his features was visible as he stepped out of it, facing Stiles. 

“Nice job,” Stiles complimented him. Coming from him, that phrase was usually laced with sarcasm. Not this time; this time, it was completely sincere. 

“Thanks.” Liam looked around the dim, rocky tunnel their cells were in. “That took too long.” 

Stiles shook his head. “Not really. Your brain works faster in a dream, time is different. Those few minutes we spent were probably like, twenty seconds topside. It’ll be even faster in the second layer.” 

“Second layer?” Liam squinted. 

_ Ah.  _ This was going to get complicated. “We should get going. I’ll explain on the way.” 

.-

Scott sent Jackson and Ethan back to the hotel they were staying in. The two of them were exhausted, and they deserved the rest. It took some convincing, some outright pleading, if he was being honest, but eventually he got his mother to take Malia and Lydia home. They were adamant about staying, but the amount of people crammed into the one clinic was making Scott nervous, and Malia could sense that, finally agreeing to leave with a promise to call if anything changed. Besides, there was nothing they could do, now. Nothing any of them could do, really, except watch the three unconscious figures anxiously and wait for one of them to wake up. 

Mason and Corey stayed. Mason wasn’t leaving Liam and Corey wasn’t leaving Mason, so they went with Deaton into his office, presumably to do a little more work on Dreamwalking and Chimera Healing. Seven bullets was a lot for anyone to take, and the fact that Theo took them for  _ Liam  _ sent a lot of conflicting emotions through Scott. 

He’d learned to trust Peter, Deucalion, Argent, and it seemed that Theo would be added to that list of people who’d tried to kill him but ended up proving more valuable than he could have imagined. Scott wondered if maybe he was too trusting. Stiles would certainly say that he was, but then again, he’d found it was better to have lots of tentative allies than have no one at all. If the choice was between ill-advised trust and fighting alone, Scott knew what he’d pick. Wolves are pack animals. 

Liam was still standing, his eyes rolled back like he was in some kind of trance. Theo still seemed trapped in whatever hallucination he was in, groaning in pain and muttering every so often. Scott smelled a faint metallic twinge and realized Stiles had a nosebleed. 

Derek hadn’t left. “Stiles is my ride,” he’d said. Scott didn’t push it. 

It was just the two of them now, watching. They’d both healed, at this point, still covered in blood and grime but physically fine. Scott felt a firm hand grasp his shoulder. Some of the tension left his body at the comforting familiarity of the touch. 

“They’re gonna be fine,” Derek said. “Stiles can guide them out. Just give them time.” 

“He’s bleeding,” Scott pointed out dully, as if Derek couldn’t see it or smell it. 

“He’ll heal,” Scott heard the smile creep into Derek’s voice. “He’s stronger than he looks.” 

Scott closed his eyes and prayed that Derek was right. 

.-

The tunnel never ended. It just changed to a different kind of tunnel, one with pipelines running all along it, with a greenish tinge and a mildewed, damp smell accompanied by water treatment chemicals. Stiles recognized the symbol on the wall. It was an Ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail.

“This is where the Dread Doctors were,” Liam whispered to him, the thuds of their footsteps echoing against the concrete. “Is this the second layer?” 

Stiles kept his eyes forward as they walked.”Not yet. But this is where we’ll find Theo, hopefully.” The concept of Multi-layered dreaming wasn’t that difficult. You dream within a dream, there, done. Stiles had done it, multiple times. It wasn’t pleasant, and it always seemed to happen with nightmares, more than anything else. “What has Theo told you about being in the ground?” 

“Not much.” Liam looked a little put out when he said that, like it was another reminder of how delicate their relationship was. “Just that he was with his sister, and it wasn’t fun.” 

“When you brought him back, it was the same spot he went under in, right?” That was Stiles’ assumption, granted, many educated guesses had no merit with supernatural rules.

“Yeah. At least, I think so.” Liam glanced down the tunnels. “That’s somewhere in here, I think it’s this way.” He started leading them down a different junction. “What does that mean?” 

“It means when Theo was in whatever Hellscape Tara had him in, his actual body was here. He probably wasn’t really all the way dead, just sleeping, buried. Hell existed entirely in his mind, created out of another layer of his subconscious.” 

Liam was listening intently. 

“And the poison, or the pain, or something made him slip back into that layer. But it’s deeper than just his dreamscape, so he should be somewhere in here, dreaming, and we’ll follow him down another layer, which will be..” 

“Hell,” Liam finished. “Great.” He tilted his head, listening. “Do you hear that?” He asked Stiles. 

Stiles quieted. He did hear it, it was the sound of rushing water, like an underground river. 

“Come on.” 

.-

Liam found the spot, the very spot he’d stabbed the sword into the ground, the wall Theo pinned him to, covered in dirt and half crazed with what Liam now knew to be fear. The crack was still there, its jagged edges splitting the smooth surface of the stone floor. 

Running along the back wall of the tunnel was a creek, flowing so gently it was almost stagnant, except for one small outlet that gurgled like a miniature waterfall, spilling water into the hole that Theo had crawled out of what felt like a lifetime ago. 

He and Stiles approached the hole carefully. Liam swallowed and took a glance inside. 

Theo was curled up in the bottom of it, sleeping. The water was pooling around him, not enough to submerge him, but enough to soak into his clothes. From the way Theo shivered, Liam knew it must have been ice cold. He was in that same black jacket he went under in, just as grimy as before. Despite the constant stream, the level of the water never seemed to rise, just spilling on top of him and disappearing into some unknown. 

Seeing Theo like that, shaking, vulnerable in a fetal position, locked inside a nightmare, it clenched Liam’s heart. 

“Jesus,” Stiles whispered behind him. 

Liam stared into the hole. He couldn’t tear himself away. “What now?” He asked shakily.

Stiles carefully walked around the hole to the creek, teasing the glassy surface of the water with his hand and wincing. “Ah, that’s cold.” 

Belatedly, Liam realized the stream must have been some representation of Tara, of how she died. 

“How do we follow him down?” Liam asked. 

Stiles grimaced. “I think…” His eyes traveled to the little stream. “We have to jump in.” 

Liam forced himself to look up and approach the water, next to Stiles. “It doesn’t look that deep.” 

“Trust me,” Stiles said, “it is.”   


“If we jump in, can we get out?” Liam asked.  _ Is it possible to die in a dream?  _ He wondered. 

“Once we get to Theo, make him aware, his mind should eject us, and we’ll wake up.” Stiles rubbed the back of his neck. “But two layers down is tricky, and well, he’s in Hell.” 

“Awesome.” Liam took in a deep breath. “On three?” He turned to Stiles. 

Surprisingly, Stiles was smiling back. “One.” 

“Two,” Liam followed. 

“Three.” They ran together, plunging into the icy water.

.-

Stiles sat up too quickly and banged his head on something hard and cold. 

“Ow,” he complained. He rubbed the bleariness out of his eyes and found he was in a box. A dark, sterile, refrigerated box. 

_ Oh no.  _

Somewhere underneath him, he heard a frustrated banging. 

“Liam, you can’t just punch your way out --” Stiles heard the distinct clicking sound of the morgue locker door opening. 

“I stand corrected,” Stiles muttered. 

“Stiles?” Liam’s muffled voice filtered into Stiles’ locker. 

“In here,” he called out. He carefully wriggled around to flip onto his stomach, placing a hand on the inside of the door.  _ This door does not exist.  _

It clicked open, revealing Liam’s concerned face, staring back up at his. Wait, if he was eye level with Liam...he pulled himself forward a little so that his head poked out of the locker. He was in the third row, and about six feet off the ground. 

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” 

“I can carry you out?” Liam offered, clearly trying to suppress a smile at Stiles’ compromising position. 

“Nope, I’m good.” Stiles sighed. This was not going to be good for his dignity. Or his skull, possibly, if he messed it up. He turned over to be on his back and pulled himself out further, until he could get an arm out of the locker. He reached up to grab the ajar door, using it to gain enough leverage to pull his considerably lanky legs out. 

His hand slipped. 

Stiles would have gone tumbling to the floor and spilled his brains all over the morgue had it not been for Liam, catching him under the armpits and dragging him out safely. 

“You good?” Liam snickered. 

From his position in Liam’s arms, Stiles couldn’t give him a withering glare, but he hoped it was conveyed anyway. “Speak  _ nothing  _ of this.” 

With a hefty shove, Liam got Stiles upright, with no small amount of awkward stumbling. “Thanks,” Stiles muttered.

Liam nodded. The two of them looked around the dim morgue, unsure. “This is where Theo and I hid from the ghostriders,” Liam said. 

A sudden bang startled them. It was coming from one of the lockers. Stiles quickly moved toward Liam. Another bang echoed through the cold room, and one of the metal doors in the bottom row bulged unnaturally. With a third resounding clang, the door burst open, and out crawled Theo Raeken. 

“Theo?” Liam’s eyes lit up and he ran over to help pick the kid up off the floor. 

Once they were both standing, Theo stared at Liam in shock. 

“Liam, what are you doing here?” 

“We’re here to get you out,” Liam’s eyes were hard set, determined. 

The look of despair that crashed over Theo’s features made him flinch. 

“You can’t,” he whispered. 

_ “Theo…” _

A young girls’ voice rasped through the hospital, singing the name with a menacing lilt. 

Theo blanched. “You need to run,” he said. 

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening, buddy.” Stiles didn’t say it as an expression of camaraderie. It was an inescapable fact; there was nowhere to run.

Nothing could have prepared him for seeing Tara walk through the door. 

Stiles had met her, briefly, when she was alive. This version of her made him want to vomit. Her broken, bloody ribs hanging out of her chest, her ice cold skin covered in rot, her welt hair plastered messily to her too-pale face, she looked more like a  _ thing  _ than a human. 

Then she  _ scurried,  _ honest to god scurrying on all fours like a wild animal, going right for Theo. 

“No!” Liam pushed himself between her and Theo just as she was about to be on top of him. 

And Tara plunged her hand right into Liam’s chest and pulled out his heart. 

.-

Back at the clinic, a thin stream of blood trickled from Liam’s lips. 

Scott was up immediately. His hands ghosted around Liam’s face, unsure of what to do. He couldn’t risk jostling him and pulling him out when it was too early, but if Liam was dying in there…

Derek looked over from the chair he had pulled next to Stiles. He put down the gauze he used to wipe Stiles’ still bleeding nose and quickly ripped off a fresh piece, giving it to Scott. Scott took it gratefully and wiped Liam’s mouth. 

“No…” on the table, Theo started muttering again. 

“We have to wake them up,” Scott said. 

“You can’t,” Derek grabbed Scott’s wrist before he could touch any of the three unconcious bodies. “They’re two layers deep.” 

“How can you tell?” Scott could feel himself start to get panicky. 

Derek’s jaw twitched, and he wordlessly showed Scott the gauze he’d just pulled from Stiles. 

It was wet with an inky black. 

“Oh god,” Scott pulled out of Derek’s grip, backing away. “Why didn’t he tell me about any of this?” 

“Because you’ve been so open with him lately?” There wasn’t any heat in Derek’s words, but they stung anyway. 

““He was out, he had a life,” Scott said defensively. “He was at the freaking  _ FBI,  _ I wasn’t gonna drag him back here. I was trying to protect him.” 

Derek exhaled tiredly. “Maybe he was doing the same for you.” 

Scott went quiet. 

.-

Liam’s lifeless body fell to the ground in front of Theo. Somehow, even in the chill of the hospital, Theo felt his blood run cold. 

Tara was still there, crouching over Liam, holding his still beating heart in her hands. Theo couldn’t take his eyes away from Liam, from the bloody, gaping hole in his chest. It was like his worst nightmare had been laid out in front of him, and Theo was frozen. Couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. 

_ It was supposed to be me,  _ he thought.  _ You were supposed to be safe.  _ He felt a few tears prick behind his eyes. 

_ What happens next?  _ He thought helplessly.  _ I’m never awake for this part.  _

“Oh boy,” Stiles squeaked. Theo had almost forgotten he was there, and apparently Tara had to, because she whipped around to face him, moving awkwardly on three limbs instead of four, the fourth crushing Liam’s most important organ, 

_ The most important thing about him,  _ Theo realized. Because Liam’s heart beat bright and strong and Theo never understood how much he  _ relished  _ the sound of that pulse until it was silent. 

Tara stood, nearing Stiles menacingly. Stiles nearly tripped over his own feet backing away. 

But Tara didn’t attack him. Once he was sufficiently out of the way, she just took her heart, Liam’s heart, (Theo’s heart) and loped out of the morgue. 

The harsh bang of the door behind her echoed through the silent room. 

Theo couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take looking at Liam’s lifeless eyes in front of him, and he told himself it was because of where he was, that his defenses were down, but a part of him knew that if the two of them were in the real world, he’d react exactly the same way. 

Theo broke down. 

He fell to his knees in front of Liam and let the tears fall, silently, freely. He grabbed Liam’s still-warm hand on instinct and had the sudden urge to try and take his pain, but he knew there wasn’t any. 

He knew Stiles was watching him. He didn’t care. He just sat and gripped Liam’s hand tighter and tried to think of anything beyond the crushing silence of what used to be so vibrant and angry and caring and  _ alive. _

“This is bad,” Stiles muttered. 

Theo forced himself to wipe off his tears and look up at Stiles, giving him a hard glare. 

“You think?” 

“People get trapped in Limbo together,” Stiles ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Whatever this is,” he waved a hand around their desolate setting, “Liam could become part of it. That,” Stiles pointed a shaking finger at Liam’s body, “that could become your hell.” 

Theo stiffened. He imagined seeing the two of them waking up here together, and then watching Liam die, watching Tara rip his heart out, over and over and over again, and  _ no,  _ that was absolutely never, ever happening. He’d let Tara rip him to pieces if he had to, but that was  _ never  _ happening.

“It’s not resetting,” Theo swallowed. “It should have reset by now.” 

“I’m aware this is a sore subject, but if I’m getting us out of this, I need to know,” Stiles knelt down next to them. “What’s supposed to happen down here?”

“Tara rips my heart out,” Theo said numbly. “I remember killing her, I remember the Dread Doctors, I wake up in one of those.” 

“Wow, your subconscious is  _ really  _ on the nose with that one.” Stiles gave a thoughtful look to the lockers. 

“My subconscious?” 

“Yes, dumbass, we’re in your head.” Stiles settled into a sitting position, the gears in his head turning. “Question is, how do we get out?” 

“Is he really dead?” Theo asked. 

“Doubt it. He’s probably just a layer up. Or down,” Stiles stared at Liam intently, coming to a decision. “Yeah, he’s a layer up, thank god. I’m deep enough inside you already.” 

Theo quirked his eyebrow. Stiles winced. 

“I did not think that one through, sorry.” Stiles shook himself. “Okay, your mind constructs its own personal hell. And we need to deconstruct it.” 

Theo felt a sudden emptiness in his hand. Liam’s body was gone. 

“Where’d he go?” He stood, frantic. 

Stiles stood with him. “Theo, you gotta work with me here, or we’re both gonna get stuck.” 

“ _ Work  _ with you?” He spun on Stiles. “You want me dead. You’ve wanted me dead since I came back the first time, and maybe even before that.” 

Stiles flinched back, before controlling himself. “Really? You want to talk about fourth grade  _ now?”  _

“Why are you even here, Stiles? And Where. The  _ hell.  _ Is Liam?” 

.-

Liam woke up in the river. 

He swam to the surface as fast as he could, breaking through with a gasp. The chill of the water and the air of the tunnels seeped into his bones immediately as he pulled himself onto the concrete, dripping wet. 

He put a shaking hand onto his sternum, checking for a hole that wasn’t there. 

“Shit,” he breathed. 

A part of him wanted to jump right back into that river, but a part of him knew that if he did, the story would end the same way. Tara would get his heart. He’d wake up here. He’d jump into the river and wake up in a locker. And he’d do that, over, and over, and over again. Because if Tara was getting him, that meant she wasn’t getting Theo. 

And maybe at some point he’d get stuck in that hell with Theo, and maybe that would be worth it, if it meant Theo wouldn’t have to be alone in it. If there was no other way to save him. 

_ Jesus.  _ The “I’m not dying for you” in the elevator turned out to be a lie on both sides. 

Liam mentally slapped himself. He was not spending an eternity in hell with  _ Theo Raeken,  _ of all people. 

But he was still tempted to jump back in anyway, because the thought of leaving him down there put a pang in his chest far more painful than what Tara did. 

He opted instead for lowering himself into the hole Theo was sleeping in. He tried to lift Theo’s shivering body out of the pool he was laying in, but it was no use. It was like Theo was glued to the floor. He had to settle for awkwardly pushing him until there was enough room for Liam to sit in the pool of water, scrunched up next to him, re-soaking his jeans. Could you get hypothermia in a dream? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. Apparently dying just woke you up, although that didn’t work in Theo’s case. 

Liam found himself putting a hand on Theo’s dirt-covered shoulder, listening to the gurgle of the water falling on top of the two of them. 

“I was lying,” Liam muttered. “When I said I should have left you in the ground. Okay, maybe I meant it then, but I definitely retract that.” He shook his head at himself. Theo couldn’t hear him. 

“I don’t know how you got stuck back there again,” Liam took in a shuddering breath, “But I know it happened because of me. Because you tried to save me, and I’m sorry. For that.” 

Liam kept talking, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “You never told me why, though. I asked you, remember? When you stopped me from killing Gabe? You weren’t saving my life then, you were saving…” 

_ My soul,  _ Liam thinks. 

“But now you’ve done both. If we get out of this, I’m definitely giving you that fist bump.” 

Somehow Liam’s hand found its way into Theo’s hair. 

“You better wake up, asshole.” 

.-

A realization dawned on Stiles' face. “Liam broke the loop.” 

Theo just kept glaring at him. 

Stiles continued to explain. “Your mind loops the dream, right? But it isn’t resetting, and it’s supposed to, so Liam must have broken the cycle. And that’s the first step to deconstructing all this.” 

“Stiles, where is he?” Theo demanded. 

“He’s with you. Not this you, the sleeping you.” 

“You mean like my actual body?” 

Stiles scrubbed a hand across his face tiredly. “Theo, this place? It’s a layer deeper than your dreamscape. So you, right now, are sleeping in your dreamscape, dreaming this.” 

Theo blinked. “Did you take acid before the fight?” 

Stiles groaned. “Theo, I’m a dreamwalker, Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.” That was kind of a lie, Stiles didn’t really know shit. But, in the land of the blind…

“Look, we have to break you out of this place. And if we don’t want you to fall into it again, we have to take it apart. Brick by brick. Liam started that, but you have to finish it.” 

Theo rolled his eyes, “Don’t you think if I could do that, I’d have done it already?” 

“Maybe you couldn’t do it without help. Maybe you need a guide.” 

“And you?’ Theo gave him an incredulous look. “ _ You’re  _ my guide?” 

“No, Liam’s your guide. I’m his guide.” 

Theo closed his eyes. Stiles could tell he was growing more impatient by the second, and he  _ really  _ didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his frustration, but there wasn’t anyone else around. 

“Why didn’t you trust me?” Theo asked suddenly. 

Stiles squinted. “Um, because you were lying?” 

“I’m aware of that, but you caught it so quickly. No one else did, and that shit you pulled, with the signatures, with getting Liam to stalk me, you were pretty determined to dig something up. So I ask myself why,” Theo’s tone was cold, guarded. “And the only reason I can think of is that, even if I was everything that I said I was, you’d never let me in anyway. Because you didn’t want to share  _ Scott.”  _

The venom that leaked into Theo’s voice at that last sentence nearly knocked Stiles over. 

Indignation seeped into his bones. 

“You’re an idiot, Theo.” 

“Am I wrong?” He challenged. 

Stiles spluttered. “ _ Yes.  _ You’re wrong. You want to know why I was looking so hard? Why didn’t trust you? Because you were  _ nothing  _ like the kid I knew. I remembered you from fourth grade, you know that? I remembered you because I cared about you, because I  _ missed  _ you. You want to know why Scott and I never found any other friends? Because we never found anyone as good as you were.” 

That officially made Theo speechless. Stiles counted that as a win. 

“I broke into the fucking administration's office because I didn’t want you to be the same kid I knew. I didn’t want to believe you could’ve turned into the cold, calculating,  _ bullshit  _ spewing psychopath that came back to Beacon hills.” 

A cruel smirk turned up Theo’s lip. “Takes one to know one.” 

And Stiles laughed, breathy and hysterical. “You think that’s news to me? I was chosen by an evil trickster spirit. I knew your skateboarding story was horseshit because you lie  _ exactly  _ like I do. You --” Stiles jabbed a finger in Theo’s direction. “You are a funhouse mirror.” 

Stiles took a breath to calm himself down. This wasn’t helpful. None of it was helpful. They needed to break Theo out of here. The mathematical side of Stiles’ brain knew they could spend an hour shouting at each other down here and barely pass two minutes topside, but still, time was of the essence. 

Theo stared at Stiles, as if seeing him for the first time. “You really mean that,” he said finally. 

“Yeah,” Stiles shoved his hands into his pockets. “I meant all of it.” 

Theo opened his mouth to give a response, but it died in his throat. “The lockers are gone.” 

Stiles turned to the empty wall next to them. “Shit, you’re right.” 

“Is that good?” Theo asked, “Or am I gonna wake up inside a wall next time?”

Stiles took a quick inventory of the room. The tables were empty. The storage cabinets were gone. “The dream is collapsing.” Stiles cracked a small smile. “Liam’s helping you take it apart.” 

Theo swallowed thickly. More genuine emotion passed over his face in a few seconds than Stiles had seen in Theo’s entire lifetime. “How?” 

“He forgave you,” Stiles finally met Theo’s eyes. “Theo, this whole place, it’s built out of your guilt, your grief, your trauma. If you want to deconstruct it, you have to…” Stiles sighed. “You have to forgive yourself.” 

“I think I’m a little beyond absolution,” Theo muttered. 

“Look, I’ll be the first to list the bad shit you’ve done. Vividly, with all the gory detail. But nothing’s gonna change all that.” Stiles forced himself to move closer to Theo, because he  _ needed  _ him to get the message. He had to learn it himself, the hard way, after spending night after night combing through every report he could find, looking for everyone they couldn’t save, every victim of the nogitsune, the Kanima, the Darach, the Dread Doctors, because he couldn’t stop. Mr. Harris, Ollie, Erica, Boyd, Aiden, Heather, 

_ Allison.  _

It was thirty-eight names, and Stiles could list every single one.. 

“It’s not about making it okay,” Stiles continued. “It’s not about cleaning your hands, because the blood’s always gonna be there. Always.” 

Theo searched his face. “Then what?” 

“It’s about saying  _ never again.  _ And sometimes you mess up.” 

Donavon was number twenty-seven. 

“But you have to find it in yourself to keep saying it.  _ Never again.”  _

For a second time, Theo was rendered speechless. Stiles watched as a single tear spilled onto his cheek. 

_ “Theo…”  _ Tara sang. 

Theo jerked at the noise, looking past Stiles’ head to the door of the morgue. 

Except...the door was gone. Tara couldn’t get in. 

Theo’s eyes widened. He turned back to Stiles and gave him a single, curt nod. 

The world went black. 

.-

Theo woke up in a pool of freezing water. 

He gasped in shock, flailing around, until his arm was caught by someone sitting right next to him. 

_ Liam.  _

The boy broke into a grin. “You made it out,” He breathed in disbelief. 

And Theo couldn’t help it. He let a smile slip through, a real one, the kind only Liam ever got to see. 

“Yeah,” he exhaled. “Barely.” 

Liam’s eyes sparkled with what Theo could only label as affection. 

Suddenly, Theo found himself wrapped in a hug. He tensed at first, out of instinct, but he forced himself to relax. Because even in his soaked through clothes, at the bottom of a dirt-filled hole, in a dank, oppressive tunnel, 

Theo felt warm. 

.-

Liam’s eyes opened first. 

Scott quickly moved to catch him before he could fall over. He gently eased Liam’s unsteady body onto the floor. As his claws went out, Stiles’ eyes snapped open. Derek caught him, quickly shoving a trash bin under Stiles’ chin. 

Stiles vomited up a thick, black goop. 

“Never again,” he gasped out. “Never doing that again.” 

Theo groaned softly and sat up on the table. “For once, I agree with you.” 

The four of them looked up at him in wonder.

“You’re okay,” Scott spoke first. 

Theo gingerly poked at his back. “Yeah.” 

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Stiles muttered into the trash can.

Liam slowly got to his feet, using the table to support himself. “ _ I’m not dying for you?”  _ Liam mimicked in disbelief. 

Theo smirked. “I didn’t, did I?” 

Liam’s angry pout made it worth it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for 100 Kudos!


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